Legal alert no. 3 / April 2018

Legal Alert 15.04.2018

Law for the approval of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 53/2017 for the amendment and completion of the Labor Code

Law no. 88/4 April 2018 for the approval of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 53/2017 for the amendment and completion of Law no. 53/2003 – the Labor Code, published in the Official Gazette no. 315 of 10 April 2018We have summarized below the main provisions of law no. 88/4 April 2018 (the “Law”).

The Law enters into force within three days as of its publication, respectively on 13th of April 2018.

General provisionsThe Law regulates, inter alia: (a) the limitation of the fines to be applied for undeclared labor; (b) the provision of a new criminal offence for the case when the employer restarts its activity after its suspension without taking the remedial actions which were imposed upon suspension; (c) defining the concept of “work place”; (d) granting free days for the individuals affiliated to legal religious confessions, other than the Christian ones; (e) clarifications with respect to recording the working hours of the mobile employees and of the employees working from home.

The limitation of the fines to be applied for undeclared labor

The Law establishes that the fine may not exceed RON 200,000 regardless of the number of identified persons, if the employer acts in one of the following ways:

Welcoming at work one or more persons who have not concluded a written individual labor agreement;

Welcoming at work one or more persons without performing the relevant registrations with the general registry of employees;

Welcoming at work one or more employees during the period of time when their individual employment agreement is suspended;

Welcoming at work one or more employees outside the working schedule which is provided by their part-time individual employment agreement.

New criminal offence for the case when the employer restarts its activity after its suspension without taking the remedial actions which were imposed upon suspension

An employer may be subject to a criminal offence sanctioned with imprisonment from 6 months to 2 years or with fines if it restarts its activity after it has been suspended due to committing one of the deeds described at points a) – c) above and it does not pay the fine applied by the competent authority for such breach and does not take the remedial actions which were imposed upon suspension. Such a situation may occur when restarting the activity before paying the fine and before concluding the individual labor agreement if the respective employer is sanctioned for welcoming at work one or more persons who have not concluded a written individual labor agreement.

Defining the concept of “work place”The Law defines the work place as the place where the employee carries out his/her activity, located within the perimeter made available by the employer, individual or legal entity, at the headquarter or at the branch, at the representative office, at the agency or at the subsidiary which belongs to the employer.A copy of the individual labor agreement has to be kept at the work place, as such is defined above, either in written form or in electronic form, by a person appointed by the employer for this purpose, in compliance with the legal provisions regulating the confidentiality of the personal data.

Granting free days for the individuals affiliated to legal religious confessions, other than the Christian onesAs a novelty, the Law provides that the free days regulated by art. 139 of the Labor Code (i.e., the holidays) for the individuals affiliated to the legal religious confessions, other than the Christian ones, are granted by the employer in other days than the legal holidays or than the annual vacations.

Clarifications with respect to recording the working hours of the mobile employees and of the employees working from homeFor the mobile employees and for the employees working from home, the employer has to record the daily working hours of each employee within the terms and conditions of the written agreement signed with the employees, depending on the specific activity carried out by each of them.